The penultimate round of the 2016 Spanish Autocross championship was held at Arteixo on the 13th and 14th of August. The races at the circuit located near La Coruña are reckoned as the main event of the Spanish Autocross, and that was the case again with yet another weekend of intense on track battles. Looking at the Speed Car drivers, the best result was again another win in Division III for Joan De María, a victory that secures the championship for the second year in a row at the wheel of his TTR. In the Car Cross category, Juan José Moll keeps the leadership of the championship with his Xtrem with just one more round to complete the season, while in the Junior category an incident packed final meant that the great job done by Ares Lahoz and Josep Arqué during the two days didn't pay off.
Joan Enric de María scored his fifth win of the season in Arteixo. The current Spanish champion of Division III won again at the wheel of the Speed Car TTR in a weekend that he started to dominate by setting the best time in qualifying, and he took the chequered flag in first after having to recover from the back of the field in the final. This new win by De María means that the Catalonian marque remains unbeaten this year, with six wins from six races in Division III, and also secures the title for the Speed Car driver with one race to go, to be held at the beginning of September at Miranda de Ebro.
Delfín Lahoz finished one step away from the podium, a result that doesn't reflect his pace with the TTX throughout the weekend. Delfin set the fastest lap of the final but had to settle for fourth, finishing just ahead of another Speed Car, the TTR driven by Juanjo Aranda, who finished fifth.
There was a spectacular entry in Arteixo, with fifty eight Car Cross cars taking part in the qualifying sessions, eleven of them being Xtrems built by Industrias Lahoz.
The fastest of them all was one of the Speed Cars, driven by Juan José Moll who started the weekend in the best possible way. Things took a turn for the worse, though in the heats with an incident that forced him to look for a place in the final through competing in the final C, where he was second, and the final B. A third position in that race was enough for Moll to get to the final where he recovered from the back of the grid to finish ninth and score enough points to keep at the front of the championship with one race to go.
David Casadevall also managed to go through the heats and be one of the fifteen starting the final, where he was classified thirteenth with his Speed Car Xtrem.
The Junior Car Cross category produced one of the more incident filled races of the weekend, which didn't help the Speed Car drivers, Ares Lahoz and Pepe Arqué, who couldn't achieve the results they deserved given their pace at the wheel of the Xtrem.
Pepe Arqué was third fastest in qualifying and fought until the very last minute for a podium position in the final, being fourth at the chequered flag only to be relegated to seventh position after a penalty for a contact with another competitor.
Ares Lahoz was even more unlucky as, after being fourth in qualifying and starting from fifth on the grid, she made a great start to be second at the first corner, when contact with another car sent her Speed Car against the wall, where it rolled so she couldn't continue.
